Confronting Academic Dishonesty

At some time in his or her career, almost every instructor will be confronted with student academic dishonesty. The misconduct may take several forms: plagiarising, cheating on an examination, reusing one of his or her papers or someone else’s for credit, or falsifying data for some project. This article explores the issue of academic dishonesty, focusing primarily on plagiarism. Legal cases involving dishonesty are reviewed; one school of social work’s policy on student academic misconduct is presented; and other avenues of intervention and prevention are discussed.